The Croatian Football Federation demanded its international counterpart for football "FIFA" to provide clarifications regarding a number of refereeing decisions and video technology decisions that it believes affected the exit of its national team against Portugal from the 2026 World Cup.
The Croatian national team suffered a defeat against Portugal by two goals to one in the round of 32 of the World Cup, and the Croatian national team scored a goal in the final seconds equalizing the result, but the referee canceled it due to offside after returning to the video assistant referee technology.
The Croatian newspaper "Sportske Novosti" published, as reported by the Spanish radio station Cadena COPE, the letter from the Croatian Federation to FIFA, which was sent one day after the match held on July 2.
The Croatian Federation clarified that its goal from the letter is to obtain an explanation for the controversial decisions, and to avoid repeating what it described as misunderstanding and injustice in the future.
The Croatian Federation criticized the awarding of a penalty to Portugal after the intervention of the video assistant referee technology, despite the referee being close to the play and witnessing the incident directly and initially not considering that there was anything warranting a penalty.
Croatia believes that the incident did not fall under the category of a serious incident that the referee did not see, which justifies the intervention of the video assistant referee technology.
The Croatian Federation had particularly objected to the cancellation of Joško Gvardiol's goal in the 103rd minute due to offside on Mario Pašalić.
FIFA had clarified that the "Connected Ball" technology integrated into the official match ball recorded a touch from Igor Matanović, which allowed the referee to award the offside and cancel the goal.
However, the Croatian Federation doubted the explanation, pointing out that the offside rules do not consider hair part of the body unless it affects the movement of the ball or its path, which only happens in cases of a large amount of hair, such as a hairstyle raised above the head.
The Federation added that the available images do not clarify whether the cancellation of the goal was due to the possibility of Matanović touching the ball with a single hair, or because that touch actually affected the movement of the ball or its path.
The Croatian Federation concluded its letter to FIFA with: "We believe it is completely wrong that an almost imperceptible vibration, recorded by a sensor, can determine the outcome of a match of this importance."
